🇻🇪 Venezuela sigue necesitando ayuda
Last week I wrote to you about the earthquakes that hit my country.
As of this week, more than 2,500 people have been confirmed dead, and tens of thousands are still unaccounted for. La Guaira and Caracas remain the hardest hit.
Rescue teams from more than a dozen countries are still working through the rubble, and Venezuela is now moving into the long, slow work of recovery.
If you donated last week: Muchas gracias. If you haven't yet, here are a few organizations doing real work on the ground right now:
Global Empowerment Mission — Doral, FL-based, partnered directly with I Love Venezuela and the U.S. State Department, running distribution hubs on the ground
Direct Relief — medical aid and supplies, 100% earmarked for this response
GiveDirectly — cash sent straight to affected families
Every bit helps. Fuerza, Venezuela. 🇻🇪
¡Hola! 👋🏻
Bienvenido/a a Master Spanish Weekly. A lot of new faces have joined over the last few weeks, so bienvenidos. This lands in your inbox every Friday (mostly): one clear lesson, real examples, and a few things to help you keep Spanish present in your week.
Thank you for being here and for giving Spanish a little space in your day. ¡Vamos! 🧠
Lesson of the week
📘 Lección de la semana: Quería vs Quise
Quería and quise both translate to "I wanted," but they tell different stories. One opens the story, the other closes it.
Quería (imperfect): a neutral desire, no outcome. It opens the story.
Quería pedirte un favor. → I wanted to ask you a favor. (soft, polite)
De niña, quería ser maestra. → As a kid, I wanted to be a teacher.
Quise (preterite): a specific moment of wanting, usually with an outcome. It closes the story.
Quise llamarte, pero no tenía señal. → I wanted to call you (I tried), but I had no signal.
Quise ayudar, así que llamé de inmediato. → I wanted to help, so I called right away.
Watch out: no quise is a deliberate refusal, not just "I didn't want to":
No quise ir a la fiesta. → I refused to go to the party. (and I didn't)
The imperfect paints the background: what was going on, what you knew. The preterite marks a single point in time: the moment something happened.
And it's not just querer: saber, conocer, poder, and tener all work the same way.
I put together a full guide with all five verbs, their conjugations, and example sentences for each. Download it, print it, practice it.
Here’s a reel video on quería vs quise that went really well on both Instagram and Facebook. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look:
👉 Quería vs Quise, explained (Instagram)
👉 Quería vs Quise, explained (Facebook)
Let’s test your knowledge!
✏️ Mini Quiz
Choose the best answer.
Which sentence describes a general, ongoing desire with no specific outcome?
(a) Quise aprender francés. · (b) Quería aprender francés.
"_____ abrir la ventana, pero estaba atascada." (I tried to open the window, but it was stuck.)
(a) Quería · (b) Quise
"No quise firmar el contrato" means:
(a) I didn't feel like signing the contract · (b) I refused to sign the contract (and didn't) · (c) I wasn't able to sign the contract
Which is the softer, more polite way to open a request?
(a) Quise preguntarte algo. · (b) Quería preguntarte algo.
"_____ ayudarlos, así que me quedé una hora más." (I wanted to help them, so I stayed an extra hour.)
(a) Quería · (b) Quise
¡Gracias por leer mi newsletter!
¡Gracias!
Gracias por estar aquí esta semana, por tu curiosidad, y por darle un poco de tu tiempo al español. Nos vemos el próximo viernes.
¡Un abrazo!
Alejandro, Founder and Director @ Vokally
